Run- Ann Patchett

This is one of those books which doesn't try to certify any line of thought, which doesn't try to build a yardstick upon which all people will be judged. It grants allowance to life's chaos while discussing any event or people.

The story is about a white father ,Doyle, his 3 sons constituting 2 colored adopted boys,Tip and Teddy, his wife Bernadette who has been dead for a long time now, the adopted boys' real mother Tennessee and her daughter Kenya. The biological son of Doyle is named after Father Sullivan, his uncle. With Sullivan, who is now 34 and away doing community service in some parts of Africa, Doyle rests all his ambitions on top of his adopted sons. He has big dreams for them, when one night turns their life upside down. The real mother who was non existent even in their dreams turns up as a life saver, Sullivan comes back unexpectedly and there is the added fuss of an extra sister conferred upon them. Their life -past, present and future- presents itself as a labyrinth and the solution comes through the events that follow.

The events, the thoughts, the pain.. everything is discussed in such minute detail that we can live through it. The author shows veracity when recounting the multitudinous of situations and people. Ichthyology, Africa, politics, faith are but a few among them.

Life is about making mistakes and how we react to those mistakes and how we are often given another chance to correct them. We can choose a better path then or choose ourselves to get penalized. Either way we can never predict the outcome and there is no point in wishing if this or that event haven't had happened. The way it happened might have been for the best.

At a few places the plot turns superficial, but undiminished enjoyment is guaranteed.

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naked sun: Isaac Asimov

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This book belongs to sci-fi genre and it had triggered off my interest in Asimov's works. Reading this book will make you familiar with the vocabulary in the Foundation series. Spacers are descendants of earthmen who had migrated to planets outside the solar system like Aurora and Solaria. In solaria people lived isolated from each other. The population was kept a constant. Each solarian had a large farm and each farm had a large no of robots. Solarians hated seeing each other. They despised personal closeness. They were trained from birth in nurseries to behave like that. They would never know who their parents were. They considered earthmen inferior. Earthmen lived underground, in constant fear of attack from spacers.

Elijah Bailey, an earthman and a detective of C6 class was invited to solaria for the investigation of a murder case. R. Daneel Olivaw, a robot from aurora who had been with him on another investigation in Earth was assigned to work with him. Under secretary Albert Minnim wanted Bailey to observe everything around him and inform the sociologists about the conditions there so that they can figure out the spacer’s weaknesses and devise mechanisms for defense in case the spacers decide to attack earth. Daneel was known as a robot only to Elijah. He looked so much like a human being that he would pass on as a real auroran before the solarians.

Engrossing power is at its zenith in this book. This is a tail of how an earth man outwitted the sophisticated solarians.

The 3 laws of Robotics
1)A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2)A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3)A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
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the piano teacher: Elfriede Jelinek

The novel felt like a dark maze to me. No sooner did I reach the 20th page, I wanted to throw the book into a dust bin. I couldnt attach myself to anybody in the story. Not even a single incident seemed distinctly familiar. The protagonists are all Austrian. The book is like a Nazi concentration camp with the characters alternating the roles of tormentors and victims. My whole mindset was disturbed. But anyway I've read it in full.

Erika Kohut, a whirlwind as her mother calls her, loves and hates her mother with the same intensity. In her late thirties, still unmarried and a virgin, still under the constant control and interrogation of her mother, she begins to lead a secret life to fulfill her sensual appetite. In the meantime her attraction towards Walter Klemmer, her student who was only trying to take advantage of her, becomes uncontrollable. In this book, the author paints a person who cant help herself. She is a perverted human being, carrying the scars inflicted in childhood, unable to be herself even in adulthood and who draws saddistic pleasure from torturing others mentally and physically.

Positives I saw
>>Good language
>>Complex thoughts some described in a natural way with uncliche'd allusions
>>Importance to every nuance of behaviour
The portrayal is strong and powerful. I havent come across anything close to 'the piano teacher' in that sense till now.
I couldnt understand the piano teacher. But the author is a connoisseur.

Maybe I should have read it a little later in my life.

Painted Veil: W. Somerset Maugham

"Lift Not The Painted Veil Which Those Who Live Call Life."

Brought out amid ridiculous protests of impersonation this book talks about the silly but difficult thing called life. Sometimes charm and tact wins over intelligence, honesty and even love.

"It was incredible that over there, up country, only 600 miles away, men, women and children had been dying like flies" while Kitty who had just been back from there, after having lost her husband to cholera dined with the Townsends and talked about if so and so had gone home and if so and so got cured from the fracture.

Kitty Fane is a pretty young lady but empty headed and shallow. She is married to Walter, a biologist who is intelligent, capable and madly in love with Kitty. But he couldn't win her affections because she thought him cold and proud. She deceives him and the husband's vengeance is in a strange way in which he rather avenged himself for loving her.

The book mentions a little about faith, a lot about cholera and introduces a good variety of persons differing in terms of character and their outlook for life. At no point it is a bore and the story has got some twists that turn in a slow pace that you will always get time to guess correctly.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention.. the book has been made into a movie twice, with the same name

Quote for the day

"Some people are fortunate enough to reject, accept, resign or lay down their lives at the bidding of traditional authority. She could envy them. But in her case the traditional answers would be of no use to her individuality"
Virginia Wolf about Katherine Hilbery

Day and Night : Virginia Wolf

Virginia Wolf wrote not only for the sake of writing, but wrote condemning social menaces, with an urge and incentive to bring about a change. Her rage against conventional line of thought is evident in the book. The rules of conduct that are set before women are criticized and put to discussion frequently.

Moreover it explores the psychology and infinitesimal possibilities of vulnerable and inconsistent human mind. Different views on life and love is laid before us. Issues like women's suffrage are discussed. It says about how some people imagine things and make their life miserable, how some people have such fantabulous concepts about love that they fail to recognize their own feelings, whether those feelings are just a delusion or not, can marriage and love coexist etc etc.

Though the book is not so engrossing and ends with doubt over the happiness of the protagonist it is much much more than just a delight to read. Extreme feelings are wonderfuly and believably stated in words. The book is like a poetry in motion.